VISCOUS CONDUCTING FLOWS WITH SMOOTH-PARTICLE APPLIED MECHANICS

Smooth-particle methods have a 20-year history of solving complex problems in fluid and solid mechanics. Here we first discuss the method, pointing out an interesting and fruitful parallel linking smooth-particle methods to atomistic molecular dynamics. We then assess the accuracy and applicability of the method by comparing a set of smooth-particle Rayleigh-Benard problems, all in the laminar regime, to corresponding highly accurate grid-based numerical solutions of the continuum equations. Both transient and stationary smooth-particle solutions reproduce the grid-based data with velocity errors on the order of a few percent.